Cows are the cause.
Religion is the excuse.
Some previous posters think that the promise of Heaven makes people more eager to take part in a war, and that nobodyt would ever join an army if they thought death was the end of everything.
Say guys… where, exactly, did you get the idea that most religions have promised their followers an afterlife?
Prior to Christianity, most religions didn’t promise people anything of the kind. Judaism doesn’t promises its followers an eternal reward in Heaven (some Jews believe in it, some don’t, but there’s no infallible jewish doctrine on the subject). And if you read Homer, you’ll find that Greeks believed ALL dead souls, whether virtuous or evil, end up in in the same place, Hades (where spirits do nothing but moan, groan, and wish they were still alive).
Oh, if you were a pharaoh, king or emperor, some pagan religions promised you godhood after death. But if you were an ordinary foot soldier, most religions didn’t promise you diddley.
So… I take it that the ancient Greeks and the ancient Jews were pacifists, seeing as how they believed in no afterlife? Uh… no.
Sidebar, based on the OP’s cite of John Lennon’s treacly, saccharine, trite “Imagine” (I guarantee, if Paul McCartney had written that same song, Lennon would have SCOFFED at its stupid sentimentality).
At the end of “The Killing Fields,” a film that chronicled the horrors of Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia, we see Dith Pran and Sidney Schanberg reunited, as John Lennon is heard singing “Imagine.” We’re SUPPOSED to be touched… but I wonder, was I the ONLY person who grasped that a world with “no possessions… and no religion too” is EXACTLY what the bloodthirsty Pol Pot and his murderous Khmer Rouge were trying to create???
I disagree. I don’t think religion enters into it when the shrapnel is flying.
I think people risk their lives for many reasons: Ideals, a sense of duty, hatred for the enemy, love of country, because that bastard is shooting at me, etc.
I don’t think the throngs that enlisted after December 7th, 1941 were primarily concerned with the afterlife.
There may be no atheists in foxholes, but God ain’t the one passing you the ammo. You might die for “God and Country,” but you’re more likely to give it up to save a buddy.
The good soldier doesn’t worry about becoming a martyr to his cause. He’s more concerned with making that other son of a bitch a martyr to his cause. (Poorly quoted, I know.)
In response to Rysdad’s post; what do you think was at least part of motivation for flying planes into the WTC? For the most part I agree with what you are saying, but for the few people who do get motivated to war by religion: watch out.